Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1887-05-28

by the amount Of it which the wage
worker elsewhere can turn out by
close application through the entire
day. An increase of product caused
by increased intensity of application
on the part of the laborer will amost
always result in one or two things,
increased profit to: the employer If
he is monopolist or decreased price
of the product If he is not, and al
most never to shortening of the
hours of labor required to earn
given sum Of money or its equlva-
lent.
Hence the effect of labor saving
machinery, though it has enormous
ly intensified the application of labor
and correspondence multiplied the
product, has not proportlonally de-
creased the hours of labor necessary
to secure a comfortable existence.
II this were not the lamentablc fact,
a machine land there are a hundred
such machines) which will do in one
hour as much as Il man can in ten
hours should enable that man with
the machine to earn in one hour as
much as he previously did in ten
and leave him nine hours in day
or twenty days in month of leisure
without any diminution in his wages.
But everybody (even the obfusticated
Atkinsons) knows that the facts OBJ
stinately and continually contradict
this charming theory.
Nor is it true that the owner Of
the machine which multiplies by
ten the amount Of product without
multiplying at all the wages of the
operative, reaps like multiplica-
ton of profits, for duplicates of that
machine in the hands of other own
ers soon make such profusion of its
particular product that price of the
product falls IN the market to the
old margin of profit for the employer,
machine owner, capitalist, or what
ever we may call him, and the old
rate of daily wage for the employe.
Thus far we have shown an ad
vantage to the consumer with no ad-
vantage to the producer. Nor will
we insist that the machine has per
manenty thrown nine men out OF
employment for we believe that the
general rule is that q machine that
ten times increases product and cor.
respondingly reduces the price Of
that product also ten times increases
the consumption of that product and
so restores the nine discarded mer
to their accustomed vocation. 1t is
only where monopoly interferes thai
this is the general rule fails to hole
true.
So we do not, Us a friend and ad
vocate of the workingman, decry
labor saving machinery, but we wish
to point out the fallacy of the sup
position that the way to reduce hours
of labor is to intensity the appica
ton of the laborer.
Mr.. Atkinson is the progenitor o
a prolific brood Of similar fallacles
put forth with great appearance o
painstaking and mathematical pre-
cision, one of them being q theor,
that by penurlousness the working
classes can get rich. This theory
like the one of which we have beer
speaking. whatever its advantage
when put in practice by here anc
) there an individual anon!
, n community of individuals who de
not practice it, defeats itself by gen
{ eral application.
The Atkinson tribe of half scien
titic putterers with the labor Ques
ton mix theories, facts and deceltfu
7 figures and draw such conclusion
from their jargon rs suit their pre-
/ conceptions. Then with many air
of learning they condescend to i'm
, part the valuable results of their in
: vestigations to the child Industr
sitting meekly at their feet. The
are, rs contemporary has just
; said, tribe of "sapient muddlers.